


In The Nick Of Time

by InnerSpectrum



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 06:23:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15018584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InnerSpectrum/pseuds/InnerSpectrum
Summary: Even as soulmates destined to be together it's still not an easy path to tread to the one you're going to love.





	In The Nick Of Time

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Depression and cutting.

John Hamish Watson was your average happy suburban kid. The traditional love/hate relationship with his elder sister by eighteen months Harriet Elyse, who was nicknamed Harry by the family when baby John could not quite wrap his young tongue around her proper name. The father dies when John is eleven, Harry is thirteen and leaves them in a lot of debt. Their mother falls apart keeping the family financially afloat and the happy go lucky family disintegrates within a year.

At thirteen, puberty starts to hit John and his mates. By the end of the school year all of his mates are receiving writings on their arms, but his remain pristine. He rightly presumed his mate has not reached puberty in order to engage. John takes the japes in stride, but sometimes they sting when he is teased that no one loves him. Not the best thing to say to a pubescent boy having a tough home life, but young teens rarely think more than five seconds ahead of their last utterances, do they? 

Though the other person has never written anything directly, by fifteen John realized his soulmate was in fact out there. It was random, but sometimes he will feel a phantom sensation and knew something had happened to his non-communitive soulmate.

John was watching telly when his arm suddenly felt like it was on fire. John immediately pulled off his jumper and yanked up his sleeve. He was fine, but the burning sensation remained. John realized his other half must have burned himself. It was beginning to abate to a dull ache, but not otherwise being taken care of. John felt a little stupid as he applied burn crème on his arm, but he was hurting as well and he felt better so there. On his own arm he wrote out _you okay?_  He was completely not surprised when he received no response after a while. John went back to his telly wondering what idiot didn’t take care of himself better than that.

He was doing homework with Mary Morstan one afternoon while his mother was out and Harry wasn’t due home for at least another hour. Mary, like John, had a non-responsive soul mate. John couldn’t fault her logic and why the two of them could not fun in the meantime. Homework of course turned into a bit of snog. Thoughts of his absent other half popped into John’s head so he decided to have a little fun. He rubbed his forearm across Mary’s chest while they kissed. She caught on quickly to what he was doing and aided in the game by pulling up her sweater and taking off her bra. Within fifteen minutes he felt a burning sensation like scalding hot water. When he stopped the pain stopped a moment later. John changed tactics and rubbed the arm down Mary’s back and along her bum. The scalding sensation returned and stopped when he stopped. When John allowed Mary to straddle and then hump his arm, the heat was so intense John yelled. He did not want to think about what the other person’s arm must have felt like to cause such a reaction in John. Moments after John wrote on his arm that he gave up, a sensation like cool water running on his arm was felt.  Neither he nor Mary could decide if his soulmate was a guy or gal, but she and John both surmised s/he were not happy with John being with another.

At almost sixteen his arm is broken by his mother’s current lover when John rescues Harry from an attempted rape. When their mother accuses Harry of trying to seduce the man, the seventeen-year-old Harry comes out of the closet. The lover knew and was attempting to blackmail Harry when John came home from school early and walked in on it.  John tries not to think of his other half knowing they were going to feel it as well. Still, there was no reaction. He put them out of his mind as best he could. Life was too messed up as it was to worry about someone, who like most everyone else, did not give two thoughts about him.

Things become tenser when their mother remarries a year later to a right bastard who abuses her. Harry, unable to deal with their alcoholic mother oscillating between Harry either being a slut seductress wooing her husband or an abomination for being a lesbian leaves the house. John, strong but on the short side, gets beat a lot because the husband takes his aggressions out on John when he has none left to take out on John’s mother or when John defends his mum.

One evening while drying dishes a glass slipped through his fingers and shattered in the sink. A shard bounced and nicked his arm. John watched the thin line of blood pool in fascination enjoying the sting and a dark smile appeared. He cleaned up the broken glass in the sink, but he could not shake the enticing feeling of the cut. Three days later the next cut on his arm was not an accident.

* * *

William Sherlock Scott Holmes grew up upper class and like his elder brother by seven years, Mycroft, was years ahead intelligence wise than the peers of his age. Much too brain smart for the kids his own yet much too young emotionally for those of his intellectual age, he mostly stayed by himself. The callousness of classmates regardless of age or intelligence, it was easier for him to increase his mind by keeping his distance. And at the tutelage of his elder brother, the only one who understood him, he learns alone is what protects his heart.

He was thirteen when he felt the first marks on his arm. Because he was in a class of A-Level, he knew exactly what the subdermal sensation was when he felt it. He excused himself and went to the loo. In the privacy of the stall he rolled up his right sleeve realizing whoever this person was, he or she was was left-handed. He was surprised to not find text, but a drawing of a soccer ball. He was also intrigued that they drew it far enough up the arm that even if he rolled his sleeves partially up, it would not really be seen. Someone private. He liked that it made it easier to hide. Still he was grateful when the mark faded an hour later.  

Luckily, at least by his own reasoning – which was all that counted, his reputation for being a surly loner was well established by then. Sherlock had no friends to inquire, let alone tease him, regarding a soulmate. In all honesty, they likely would have been surprised to learn he had one. For who out there would put up with the likes of him? That certainly would have led a juvenile quest to find this person, something Sherlock had no interest in whatsoever. Going by his classmates’ behavior with finding and then connecting with their respective soulmates was nothing but a distraction from more important things, like learning and reasoning.  He wanted no parts of it. He had things to do, a life to live. He was busy. A few days later a series of question marks appeared. Sherlock realized he must have unconsciously done something that attracted the other person’s attention. They knew he was out there and was trying to subtly reach out. He would not take the bait.

Contact from the other person was random, mostly crudely drawn images, sometimes words. He eventually deduced the person was male, had the initials JW, liked sports, sometimes drank, had plans to be a doctor and was often angry if the force with which he used to write on himself was any indication. Regardless, Sherlock steadfastly refused to engage with JW.  That did not stop the mysterious JW from engaging with Sherlock.

It once took Sherlock two weeks to figure out the sensation of a blunt object slapping against his arm periodically and usually at night. He only figured it out when he walked in on his dormmate engaging his own soulmate in the that manner to get the correlation. Once Sherlock got over the initial shock of realizing what JW was doing it was worth the thorough cursing out by his much chagrined dormmate when Sherlock fell to the floor of his dorm laughing without explanation. Once he knew what it was he was easily able to ignore it. Like everything else JW did to get Sherlock’s attention, which he ignored, it eventually stopped.

A chemistry experiment at home had some unexpected results. Results that splashed a small spot of acid on his arm. He was glad his other half could not see the actual burn. He knew it would scar for a while. He immediately ran to the sink and cleansed the area in water, determined he was safe and went to carefully clean the mess made. While cleaning the burn suddenly felt soothed, as though someone had rubbed ointment onto it. He realized that is exactly what happened. Sherlock had been thinking of JW wondering if he felt it. JW had applied ointment to his own arm to ease the discomfit knowing the source. As a result, Sherlock himself felt the soothing sensation because JW had been thinking of him.

The reverse proved to particularly trying to Sherlock for a couple of weeks. Mycroft was home university. Sherlock was carrying a pitcher of iced tea to the patio when the pitcher slipped from his fingers and he yelped in pain as he grabbed his arm left arm. Mycroft took one look at his baby brother and knew. He immediately ushered them to Sherlock’s room as the younger brother showed the elder his arm. Mycroft could see JW was writing on the affected arm with his non-dominant hand, attempting to apologize for the pain. Mycroft tried to convince his baby brother to communicate with JW, but Sherlock still refused. He called his brother a hypocrite for trying to convince him to do something Mycroft himself had never done.

Though Mycroft learned the identity of his own soulmate, Tobias Gregson, like Sherlock he ignored the contact and never revealed himself. One day he realized he had not felt contact from Tobias, in nearly a year. He went at last to find his other half only to learn Tobias was killed by a drunk driver ten month previous. Mycroft discovered the young man had been going through a serious depression in the months prior. Only then did Mycroft understand why he had been inexplicably depressed several months ago. Some part of him had felt the depression and known of the loss and mourned. That was three years of potential happiness he let slip away because he had told himself he was too busy. That was over two years ago and he had not received a new mark since, does not know if he ever will again. He’s accepted that may be his fate. He does not want to his baby brother suffering the same. Mycroft learns the identity of Sherlock’s mate, but stubborn Sherlock does not want to know and tells Mycroft to stay out of it.

Sherlock, now sixteen, was on summer holiday from university, though he has taken summer courses to accelerate getting his degree. Sherlock noticed he had been feeling seemingly random nicks and scratches from JW, but ignored it as he did most else from him. Mummy naturally worried about her near reclusive youngest son and invited family with children near Sherlock’s age in the hopes of getting him to socialize. Mycroft comes home for the weekend. Mostly under the guise to help Mummy, but mostly to mitigate any problems caused by the infamous rapier tongue of his baby brother that spares no one, including family members.  Well, that and to show Sherlock his new marks from a cop named Gregory Lestrade.

Sherlock has been on good behavior, well good for him. He was feigning interest in his cousin Vincent’s whispered telling of a tawdry conquest when Sherlock noticed old scars on his cousin’s arm and asks about them. Vincent admits to his bout of depression two years ago and how he thought he coped with it. The conversation triggers Sherlock memory of the recent phantom pains from JW. Vincent confessed that his soulmate finding him is what saved him. It seemed he and Mycroft were nor the only mean of the Holmes family to ignore their soulmates. As Vincent spoke Sherlock uses his memory to overlay JW’s marks on his own arm and sees a pattern emerge. A few pointed questions and he realized the truth of what JW has been doing to himself.  With a shock he feels a new pain one that is deeper than he has felt before and knows that cannot be good. He runs to Mycroft and begs to be taken to JW immediately. Mycroft sees he brother’s panic and does not hesitate.

* * *

John has had a bitch of a day, a bitch of a week to be truthful. It’s nearly midnight and too exhausted to stand he sits on the edge of tub waiting for it to fill. He needed to soak his tired body. He had picked up two summer jobs to make money as much as to keep him out of the house. It seemed like a good idea at first. Now that he has worked his first complete week of putting in nearly eighty hours, the thought of an entire summer of this drains him. The only good thing he can get from the night is that his mother and step-father were already passed-out drunk on the sofa when he walked in. He saw the condition of his mother’s face and knew another argument had happened. He was seventeen and just so tired.

He took a swig from the bottle of whisky he took out of his mother’s hand on the way to his room. He turned off the water, kicked off his shoes and let himself slowly sink into the tub. He was too tired to wake his step-father to fight him. He was too tired to hear the lies his mother will concoct to cover for the step-father. He’s too tired to call and complain to Harry who is finally happy living her own life with her soul mate Clara. John could not even remember the last time he and Harry spoke. Was it Easter? Right, Mum had complained to her about John not being there for dinner. It was July 6th now. He took another swig of whiskey in salute to his sister’s happiness. At least someone in the family was.  

He was just so tired of it all.

He rolled up his sleeve and dug his keys with his utility knife out of his jeans pocket. It was then he realized he was in the bathtub fully dressed.

Whatever.  

He jabbed the blade in and made a small cut, watched the blood well, felt the sting. Good.  He picked up the blade to make another cut, but between the exhaustion and the alcohol and being wet he missed getting the blade in the first couple of tries, but got it to stay in again.

After all who cared? No one that’s who. Especially not whoever the hell it was on the other side. All this time next to nothing. He was tired of it. He was tired of it all and he just wanted to feel something other than tired.

Anything.

No, not anything.

Nothing.

John wanted to feel absolutely _nothing_.

He idly remembered it was _down the road, not across the street_. He turned the blade and had pulled it a few centimeters up his arm when he saw it. The pain had masked the sensation, but the word appeared anyway.

_STOP!_

John laughed in derision. The sound hollow as he tried to pull the blade a little more, but his fingers were tired and wet with his own blood now.

_It’s me Sherlock. I’m coming. I’m almost there. Wait for me! John, please!_

The surprise of seeing this name as well as his own for the first time gave him pause, but only for a moment as he took the blade and tried to scratch out the name.

_STOP! YOU’RE HURTING ME!_

These words appeared above the words he was trying to scratch out. He stared at them confused for a moment, before he remembered now that this Sherlock was in his mind the pain was shared. He was hurting Sherlock. As tired as he was, as drunk as he was, as completely through with the world as he was, John Watson could not knowingly cause an innocent person pain.

_Thank you. I’m pulling up to your door now. Happy Birthday, John._

It was after midnight. He was eighteen. Though he never told him, his soulmate somehow knew and was coming to him.

John looked at his arm and cried. He scratched one message in reply and let the utility blade drop from his fingers.

* * *

Sherlock picked at the locks on the front door. It was faster than waiting for someone to wake up and answer. He felt the familiar sensation of writing on his arm. He sighed in relief that it was not the pain of the blade again until he saw the message.

_Too late, Sherlock._

Mycroft, looking over his brother’s shoulder, saw the message when Sherlock dropped the lock pick in shock. He gently pushed his brother aside, finished picking the lock and shoved open the door.  Sherlock ran past him into the house. One quick look around told him all he needed to know of the Watson household. The step-father was starting to rouse from the intrusion. Sherlock looked around trying to deduce the location of the bathroom when he heard a loud thump and ran to it. He knew his brother would see even more and left him to deal with the parents.

Sherlock kicked open the bathroom door. The floor was wet with bloody water. The reason why was soaking wet lying face down in the middle of the floor. He had fallen getting out of the tub. Hearing the door kicked open a blond head lifted and Sherlock found himself staring into the most beautiful, yet haunted blue eyes he had ever seen. He is lost to the core of that look. Sherlock wants to live and breathe this person and never know another moment of living without him. Suddenly he knew. As those blue eyes focused on him, he knew this was John and knew John knew him for who he was.

“Hello Sherlock, my love.” John rolled over and held out the bleeding arm to him, “Help me.”

“Hello John, my love.” Sherlock had already fallen to his knees taking his shirt off to bind the damaged arm. “I am so sorry I abandoned you, I did not understand, I do now. Forgive me, please!”

On their way to John’s house, Sherlock had used his finger nail to write into his own arm to message John. Seeing his own desperate scrawl mixed in with the evidence of John’s precious cuttings and tonight’s terrifying work was shocking. It was bad to be sure, but he knew his love would live.

By the time Mycroft made his way to the bathroom Sherlock was sitting on the wet floor, tears streaming down his face as he rocked an equally tearful John Watson in his arms. The connection finally made, the two held onto each other desperately. Apologies poured from Sherlock’s lips as he told John of all the times he had felt the older boy’s presence over the past couple of years.

* * *

When they heard the ambulance arrive, John was able to stand. He leaned on Sherlock, but he walked past his understandably confused parents on his own. Two years John had waited for this tall young man with the most amazingly luminous, yet serious eyes he now knew to be Sherlock Holmes. After two years Sherlock held John’s hand as though his very life depended on it.  John held onto Sherlock’s knowing it did.

John was officially an adult by less than an hour, but the EMT did not question it when John asked for Sherlock to accompany him. Even under these extreme circumstance, the looks shared between the two told the EMT they were soulmates who just found each other in the nick of time.


End file.
